Trigger
by lauriibeth
Summary: Johanna Mason, the strange, morbid girl that nobody likes to talk to, has finally been reaped for the 69th annual Hunger Games. This is the story of her survival.
1. Dead Girl

I come from a place where the earth meets the sky. I am from a long line of men and women who cleave the trees and trim them lovingly down. I'm not a small girl. I know how to handle both myself and an axe. I can run three miles without getting out of breath. Today is the day that I give thanks for these facts.

"Jo. What_ time_ is it?" I'm sitting on the edge of the roof. The Sybbilan lake is glimmering beneath like thousands of jewels. I can't help but come here to think on the same day every year. The voice talking- saying my name in a groany, pitchy way is my brother, Tack. Nearly eighteen years old. As of next week. Unluckiest boy alive. His name must be in that bowl thousands of times, more.

"Early enough," I answer, and try not to sound snappish. "Late enough." I can feel him frowning from behind me, and I can almost picture his dark brows furrowing until they almost meet. We call that his 'Johanna face'. It's the mixture of frustration, irritation and worry that only I am able to provoke. Tonight isn't the night to upset him, and even I'm not sure why I'm doing it. I'm not scared. I refuse to let myself feel even the slightest twinge of fear about what is to come- but there is something unbearable stifling about the thickness of the air, the freezing ground beneath us and the cool sky above. The stars are vanishing now. I don't want this day to come quicker.

"Sorry." I shoot swiftly at Tack, ducking my head to sneak a look at him. "It's alright. You're allowed to be nervous," He smiles at that.

"And you aren't?" I shrug. There is nothing to be nervous about for me. Out of the hundreds of girls, some have put their names in again and again. Extra food, I suppose, it's not like we don't need it. Not me. I'm good with an axe. I eat when I can. It'll be one of the ones from school, eighteen, seventeen, pale, small waists drawn into their lavender purple gowns that are still stained with making breakfast that morning. One of those girls- they're always the poor offering that District 7 has to give. It embarrasses me some years. Other years, I watch the glinting eyes of the career girls and wonder if it's better to be them or better to be the one they're killing.

"Maybe I should volunteer. That'd be different. Bet it would entertain them all. Bet I'd win. What do you say, Tack? Want to go live in the victor's village?" I try and say it with some form of humour, but it gets choked on the way out of my throat and ends up as a dead threat. Tack tenses up. His face is so like mine that we could pass off as twins- strawberry blonde hair that's shaggy, hanging down in front of his eyes. He's small for a seventeen year old. He'd be one of the first to go.

"Why would you say that?" Tack's words are spidery, and vanish into the approaching morning light. I've grown almost adept at guessing the winner of each games. It's a sick little thing that I play every year. Ordering how each one will die. The first two years I played it; I got it utterly and completely wrong. After the third, I was bang on. If Tack's name is called, he will not make it past the Cornucopia. If mine is called… But mine will not be called. I cannot play the game with myself.

"Joking," I say as lightly as I can, but something in his eyes tells me that he isn't convinced. "Tack, I'm jo-"

"I'm not laughing." He whispers. "You're all I have left. Don't." I try to quirk up the corners of my mouth into a smile, and fake punch him on his left arm. He lets out a yelp of surprise, shooting me a reproachful, slightly amused look. "You're crazy,." It's a weak attempt to diffuse the tension and we both know it, but there's no point in holding onto what the morning will bring of it's own accord.

"As a fox." I grin. "I suppose it'll only help me, right? Better watch your back, Tack, or I'll do an Enobaria and bite you to death. Grr." He feigns offense and bats me off, half disgusted at my gallows humour and half relieved that he doesn't have to probe me about my volunteering jokes anymore.

"You're seriously touched in the head, Johanna Mason," The siren sounds for the first time, shattering the brief hopeful moment that we shared. It's too early, the sun has only just risen, and it can't be any later than seven. Tack tenses up again, his hand goes protectively, automatically onto my shoulder. "It's a warning signal," He tells me quickly. "To tell us…"

"To get ourselves goo and ready," I finish grimly. I'm not surprised they've introduced the warning siren this year; it's such a Capitol thing to do when you think about it. Make sure you're pretty, district 7, before we line you up and sentence you to death. He grips my shoulder harder and tells me something about a dress downstairs that I've been given. It's not violet like the other girls, I can already tell. They would never put me in the same sad pure group as them. I walk downstairs, barely registering it; there are some advantages to not having parents. Quietness. The house is always quiet. The dress lies on the corner of the kitchen table, and my breath hitches in my throat. Coarse cotton. It's so grey; it stumbles along the border of blackness. Mourning clothes. _I'm a dead girl._


	2. Come home to me

Getting there, fighting my way to the justice building among the swathes of people is the worst part. We have to walk past the parents who cling to their children and I feel the sting in the back of my throat, the choking envy that I always feel. It's different with Tack. He slaps my shoulder, makes a joke about not tripping up on my way there and dying before they even have a chance of reaping me. I laugh, a strained and exhausted laugh. Even as we walk in, she is watching us.

"Welcome to the Sixty First annual Hunger Games. May the odds be ever in your favour,"

I try and avoid making eye contact with her- but there she is, staring, with her green eyes that are so unmistakably catlike. Mina Clear. While we see the other organisers on screen, painted, ridiculous, tottering like pigs on their high handed heels, Mina is modified in a far more businesslike manner, scanning us like some giant super computer, waiting to analyse us, primp us, put us up for live entertainment. She catches my eyes quickly, gives an unexpected sneer of a smile, and turns away, tapping the microphone with one lime green, clawed hand.

I search for Tack across the crowd and do not find him. He's small for a seventeen year old. Even I'm taller than he is. He would be the first to go. We line up like dogs, waiting for the slaughterhouse. The girl beside me begins to cry in little, helpless sobs that echo in the almost silent crowd. Mina clear watches her with a kind of judgemental look that only those raised in the Capitol can do, and reaches into the bowl without any ceremony.

"For the girls." My breath hitches in my throat. "Johanna Mason," Adrenaline kicks in. I have not prepared for this. Stupid girl, you stupid, stupid girl. My first reaction is to lift my chin and stare the cameras down, stalk up to the stage, begin my predatory angle, but I fight that urge- my brain is working already. I am in survival mode. I consider hitting the floor, fainting, trying to get myself some time to think about how to put myself across, but I am wasting time in the mere seconds that these thoughts have raced through my brain. In the instant that it comes to me, I know it will work. Sticking out my lower lip, I tremble as best I can, unfamiliar with the sudden sensation. The girls around me part like a river as if I have a plague, but I see the look in their eyes. Pity, yes, but relief. It is the relief that the one who will die this year at the ever-infamous games is not one of their pale watery housewives- instead, the odd orphan girl that will not be missed. I'm shaking with rage now.

"On the stage, Johanna." Mina tells me curtly. "Congratulations. May the odds be ever in your favour." The words sound mechanical, but her eyes dart across my face, looking down at my trembling hands and eyes as wide as the wild foxes I've grown so accustomed to killing recently. I search the crowd- there's Tack, looking up at me in horror as well as confusion. He has never seen me like this. It is not me that he is seeing- in front of my deadly calm interior there is scared little Johanna Mason, the tribute. As Mina moves towards the bowl that contains the boys names, and the cameras follow her I look over at him and wink- once, deliberately. Nobody sees but him, and suddenly he understands.

"Johanna!" He cries, making the biggest scene he can. They must remember me as weak. I dissolve in tears that I desperately try and simulate as being real. Still, there my brother is. Looking out for me in the only way he can. A peacekeeper claps a hand on his shoulder, and I turn away as if I can't bear to see him. A murmur of sympathy ripples through the crowd, and I try to choke back the make believe tears. When I look up, Mina is gazing at me with those piercing green eyes.

"Boys." She tells the crowd coldly. "Aloe Atlas." I look up through my blurred vision and make out the hulking shape of my first known opponent. Eighteen. Jet black hair. Six foot four at least, and there is another murmur through the crowd- this time one of assent. It's been so long since district 7 has had a winner. They are hoping, needing a victor to feed them this year- I can see it in their half-starved faces. The same ripple of anger mixed with sympathy rushes through my body, adrenaline still pumping. Their winner will not be Aloe Atlas. I mark out the dullness in the way he moves, like a bear, like a large animal that has too much brute strength to know what to do with it and know as sure as day that I can take him down. Soon, we are ushered into the little safe house that is the justice building.

"Jo." He bursts in, takes me in his arms, and holds me as if his life depends on it. "We don't have much time."

"I know. I'll be back before you know it, Tack, I swear." I can tell from the way he looks at me, straight on, burning with belief in me, that he knows that I am right.

"Kill if you can. Kill them all if you have to, but come home to me, Johanna. Come home." He grips me in his arms again, and I breathe in the scent of old soap, of pine needles. The smell of home. I try and memorise it in my head, try and keep it close to me, because the idea that this is the last time I will see my brother stings me like a wasp. A peacekeeper at the door announces that the time that we have together is finally up, and I shiver.

"I said it would happen." I say suddenly before he reaches the door. "What do I do?" He looks back at me with a kind of viciousness that I have never seen before.

"Do an Enobaria." He gives me a watery smile. "Make them remember you. Make them pay for what they've done to us,"


	3. Merry and the Mirror

**Hello! Thought I should finally introduce myself. I'm Laurie. Sorry about the infrequent update here, it was because of an unexpected trip I had to take- hopefully it should be better now that I'm back permanently. Keep an eye on Merry and Aloe, they're going to be explored a little more in the next few chapters. (:**

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><p>"My name," She pronounced it hard on the N, that toxic Capitol accent. "Is Mina Clear. My job is to organize how you're going to prepare for the arena. I am not your emotional support- that is the task of your mentor." Aloe looks up from his meal- he hasn't stopped eating since we've gotten on the train. I think of Tack, sitting at our half-empty house, his poor meal of rice on the table, and suddenly feel like taking the disc that is the plate and swinging it, embedding it firmly into Aloe's undoubtedly small brain. I haven't been able to eat anything since we've got on the train- my mind has been whirring like clockwork. I have to eat. I have to get strong. So I force down a deep bowl filled with a shimmering golden soup, which I mop up with a soft white loaf. I do not take dessert. Still, Aloe ploughs through what looks like all the food on the train. A gentle rippling noise breaks and falls against the side of the train, and we both look up, look out, only to see a tide of brightly coloured creatures. At first, I think they are a herd of peacocks, the kind that an old man called Selim used to tend back in district 7. I remember them as garish birds, that had little to no use- but then again, I was only a child. Anything that couldn't be eaten was considered useless.<p>

No. They aren't peacocks.

"Wave to your crowd." Mina tells us, lounging back, reclining in her plush leather chair. It matches her snake eyes. I look closer, and for the first time, my heart jumps into my mouth. The bright moving colours are people- every shape and size, preened and primped until they are barely recognisable. Aloe looks stupidly pleased with this reception and I bite back a sharp-barbed comment. Brainless. It's a miracle that he's survived this long as it is. These people are the strangest sight I've seen yet- somehow more violent looking than the entirety of the games that I've watched in the past. Finally, It's real. Mina is watching me like a hawk as I go to the window, nervously, terrified (I think I'm getting better at this acting business). People wave, laugh, shake their heavily coiffed hair and scream their approval of the arrival of the condemned. I look up at Mina, my eyes widened into a mock expression of nervousness.

"I think I'm going to be sick," I tell her shakily, and she waves me to the bathroom with one manicured claw of a nail. Before I run past the shiny steel doors, I notice a gemstone embedded in her thumb- then I'm into the room, bigger than my bedroom, locking the door with shaky hands. I pound the mirror with my fist again and again, the anger I'm feeling spilling over like an overfilled cup. It shatters, pieces falling like rain on the floor. How am I going to manage keeping myself sane, keeping myself 'weak' so that I can survive a little longer? I know that Aloe has already counted me out, won't even bother to consider me as a threat. It will be his fatal mistake, and I know I'm going to relish killing him. However, what about the other tributes? They'll undoubtedly be sharper than the lumbering bear that's my own tribute partner, what if I'm not good enough?

"Bad day?" A small voice from inside the shower makes me jump furiously, whirling around only to remember how I have to appear in order to keep up the façade. I'm angry at myself already for breaking the exterior that is already so weak. I force myself into a hunched position, crying out in a pathetically girlish scream. Lucky I hadn't had a piece of glass in my hand; I would have turned on the owner of the voice like a wild animal.

"Y-yes… I'm so sorry, I just thought I was alon-" A man emerges from the shower, his black hair dripping and his eyes meet mine. They are cool grey, like the steel of the Capitol train doors. He slides the shower doors shut with one hand and looks at me with an unreadable expression.

"Johanna Mason." I nod a quick bobbed gesture of assent. Yes, that is my name. Victor of the 69th Hunger Games.

"Name's Merry. I'm your mentor," He's twenty four, twenty five, I don't know how old, but there is something in his eyes that tells me that what he's just seen- the fact that Johanna Mason can smash a mirror and bleed without blinking an eyelid- makes him dangerous to my chances.

"The mirror broke, I'm really sorry. I can try and fix it if you like." I lie unconvincingly, my lower lip trembling in the same way it did at the Reaping. He raises one eyebrow, grabs a towel from the rail. I haven't realised, haven't registered his nakedness purely for the fact that for normal Johanna, nakedness has never been an issue of embarrassment. It suddenly occurs to me that this silly creature that I am pretending to be- one of the girls dressed in their violet lace, would be absolutely horrified by the sight of their mentor in front of them pretty much as exposed as he could possibly be.

"I watched your Reaping," He tells me nonchalantly, taking a look in the mirror, sweeping his hair back in a gesture that lets me know immediately that he is both arrogant and incredibly intelligent. There is no point in lying to him.

"I watched your Hunger Games," I reply defiantly. His expression flickers for a moment- not in displeasure. He doesn't look impressed either- but then again, to impress at this stage has not been my aim at all. I've realised too late that I have to trust this man whilst I barely know him.

"Interesting." He tells me. "How old are you, Johanna Mason?"

"Sixteen," I reply defiantly. I'm not the oldest but I'm certainly not the youngest, and I'm a tall girl for sixteen as it is. I've looked at the other tributes and even by guesstimation, I'm taller than most of the girls and half of the boys. It works against me in some ways, for me in others- the problem that I'm quite intimidating even by the size of me will give people cause to doubt my little act.

"Only sixteen." He says is mostly to himself, under his breath. Suddenly the train jolted violently, sending us both flying, me half into the broken mirror. Instinctively, I roll as deftly as I can out of the way, and we ground to a halt. When I look up, I spot Merry who has wedged himself between the sink and the bathtub. He gives me an almost feral grin.

"Know what that means?" He asks me, the same smug look dominating his birdlike features.

"Mm." I bite back, relishing in the blunt sarcasm that I have fought back for so long for the sake of survival. "This happens on all the day trips I take to the Capitol," He laughs at that- a coarse laugh that reminds me of the days when Tack and I would go into the woods and swing the axes at the tree trunks until we had enough lumber to last the winter months.

"We're here. You know, Johanna." His eyes glint, firelight. "I like you. To look at your reaping, I would never have thought that you'd be so… Feisty. You do realise, of course, how deeply you're damaging your chances for sponsors with this little act of yours?" I pause, look down. It's too late now to change my tactics, and I know what I am capable of, know what I am getting myself into by doing this. He certainly does not.

"I don't need sponsors. I'll show you." He takes a moment to think about my words, assessing me, looking at the glimmer of muscle that my loose dress manages to hide so very well, and nods once.

"Show me."


End file.
